


Persuasion

by jenniewrennie13



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Grindelwald actually believes his own spiel, Ideology, Legilimency, Manipulative Gellert Grindelwald, Mind Games, Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers, or does he?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-06 04:31:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17932871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenniewrennie13/pseuds/jenniewrennie13
Summary: Queenie Goldstein thought she knew what to expect from Gellert Grindelwald's mind.She was very, very wrong.Because in a scene where a powerful natural Legilimens meets a Dark wizard skilled in the magic of the mind, there's got to be a lot that's not being said out loud.





	Persuasion

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic on here, here we go! 
> 
> *Spoilers for Crimes of Grindelwald, people.*
> 
> This could potentially be subtitled (and its original file name was): 'wtf was Queenie thinking? (quite a bit, it turns out)'
> 
> Please tell me what you think! Wasn't sure quite how to tag for the mind stuff so tell me if I've missed anything.
> 
> All quoted spoken dialogue here is taken from 'Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald', dir. David Yates, and belongs to Warner Bros. Pictures and J.K. Rowling, as do the characters and the scenario.

Queenie thought she knew what Grindelwald’s head would sound like.

Humanity’s noblest desires and its basest urges had always been plain to her, written in the casual thoughts which bubbled up from other people’s skulls.

She heard selfishness.

_Should I stop and see if he’s okay? Well, technically I could but why does it have to be me? Far simpler if I don’t, pretend I never saw and it never happened, right?_

She heard power-hungry bullying.

_Oh yes you think you’re so clever, challenging me? How dare you? Look at what I can do with just a few words that hit you where it hurts and now you’re back in your place, smaller than me. Too right._

She heard liars.

_Please woman just accept it, I legitimately could have been home late because the meeting overran, they often do, so why would you suspect? I don’t need the hassle right now, as long as neither of you know then it’s not hurting anyone, is it?_

So on the odd occasions when she thought about the greatest Dark wizard of the age, the selfish bastard who had manipulated a vulnerable young boy for the sake of the destructive force held inside him, the power-hungry bully who wanted to drive the no-majs into the dust, the liar who had worn another man’s face, she thought that perhaps if she ever faced him the sheer depravity of his thoughts would drive her to the floor in agony before he even cast a single spell.

Then she reminded herself that he was skilled in mental wizardry himself, and his mental wards would effortlessly repel the constantly questing tendrils of her mind with a freezing blast like ice so cold that it burned.

She shivered. Then she closed the newspaper and tuned into someone else’s thoughts in an effort to stop thinking about Gellert Grindelwald.

* * *

 

Her nightmare comes true on a lonely day in Paris after everything went wrong and the rain poured just to spite her further.

He appears from the darkened corridor like a bogeyman from the cupboard in a child’s nightmare, and she raises her wand, thinking of Tina, thinking _let me be brave let me be brave let me be brave._

“You stay right there.” _If you come closer your mind alone will break me and that is not the way I’m going to go so do not test me panic fear THINK OF TINA AND BE BRAVE._

“I know what you are.” _I know what I’ll hear once I start listening, I know it will be the worst dissonance I could ever imagine and I am not going to die listening to that so BACK OFF! I know you for what you are, and I am dangerous._

He keeps coming, and this is it, she can’t keep it back, she never can, she can’t control her urge to reach out and investigate the nearest mind even though he’s going to push her away so hard that it’s going to burn her, freeze her, and-

His mind is warm.

He’s letting her in.

He’s not occluding like he did when he was Graves (he’d copied the Director’s ward structure exactly so that Queenie, whilst feeling vaguely uneasy, couldn’t identify what was bothering her), he’s not rejecting her with all that coiled power within even though he _could,_ he’s-

He’s showing her what he’s thinking.

She sees herself through his eyes, sick with fear but determined to stand her ground and he admires her.

She feels the buzz of his own Legilimency extending towards her and thinks _oh no you don’t, mister,_ and shields herself firmly, anticipating the white-hot twisting pain of a mental invasion. It doesn’t happen. The coils of his curiosity settle around her, pleasantly warm, waiting. It shouldn’t calm her, it should be ominous, but for Queenie whose mind has ever been wandering further than she would like it to, it’s like a firm hug given to someone thrashing around with panic, the pressure steady and reassuring, holding her, safe-

No she’s not safe, this is Grindelwald, it’s a trap! She should run, hide, fight, she should-

“Queenie, we are not here to hurt you. We only want to help you.”

 _Mercy Lewis,_ he actually means it.

Bolder, she digs further into his thoughts, trying to find the lie, find the catch, find out how he’s twisting his thoughts to deceive her. It’s nowhere to be found.

 _Queenie,_ he thinks, and she can _feel_ sincerity just in the way he thinks her name, _why are you afraid of me? Why do people always fear the future I wish to give them? I don’t want to harm you, Queenie. Please don’t fight me. You have tried to hide your whole life because you fear your own power, and I want better than that for you._

“You’re so very, very far from home. Far away from everything you love. Everything that was comfortable.”

Her wards had slipped. When had that happened? She has failed to keep him out and now he would use her, he would destroy her, she wanted him out- or did she? On the point of pulling her formidable powers into attempting to eject him from her mind, she hesitates. Because he’s _right,_ he understands that she’s terrified and she’s never felt so lost. And he’s not mocking her for it: his mind as it brushes hers is alive and warm and sparkling like the minds of all the best people she’s ever known. He isn’t invading too far, not siphoning her memories or looking for information as she expected him to, just observing the panicked upper level of her thoughts.

Queenie is dangerous, because of what she is. She knows that. It’s why she never aimed for a job with power, so afraid that she’d misuse her talents and become one of the bullies she hated hearing, it’s why she let people at MACUSA think she was just a pretty doll obsessed with gossip, it’s why she hid behind her mask and learnt how to talk for hours without saying anything. She has heard total strangers’ most painful nightmares, she knows her friends’ traumatic memories before they trust her enough to share them. Sometimes it feels like she is screaming, unheard, amidst the cacophony in her mind. She has spent a lifetime learning to be the voiceless listener.

And she doesn’t push him out of her mind, because though she’s still terrified, though this is Grindelwald, though everything about this is wrong, for the first time in her life someone is _listening to_ _her._

And it frightens her just how much a relief that is. How much she wants to keep on being heard, being seen, being understood like this. Her wards lower further without her really intending them to, but Grindelwald doesn’t push straight in. He moves casually, slowly, accepting only the thoughts that she can no longer bear to keep locked away.

Tina surges forward in her mind, wand raised like a flaming sword of justice. _Fight, Queenie,_ she instructs, eyes blazing, and Queenie tries, she tries so hard but she can’t be Tina, she doesn’t know how to be convinced of the inherent rightness of the law when she reads the pain it causes in others’ minds, when she’s constantly slipping through the quagmire of other people’s moralities. She can’t fight but she can’t betray Tina either, and not fighting is betrayal, and she’s stuck.

“I would never see you harmed, ever. It is not your fault that your sister is an Auror.”

He’s in further, suddenly, and she cannot resent him because he has just soothed one of her deepest, most secret hurts and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to hate him for that. _Our people won’t blame you for your family,_ his words say, but his thoughts confirm that their meaning is much deeper than that. _It’s not your fault that you can’t protect your sister from the danger she courts every day. It’s not your fault that you couldn’t come between her and her dangerous ambitions._ His sympathy pours forth generously, like lashings of rich melted chocolate. _All you ever wanted was to protect her, and you’d do anything to keep her safe. Your deepest hurt is that she makes that so difficult. You’re a protector, Queenie. You want the best for your own. You’re like me._

 _No, I can’t, we’re opposites!_ Queenie tries to protest, but everything that she is receiving in waves from Grindelwald is everything she’s ever felt and aspired to feel. She sees a vision in his head, a global family of wizards, his family, his to protect, to defend, to support. She recognises this drive, this desire: it’s what she feels for Tina, every single day. It’s the same urge, but Grindelwald feels it towards the entirety of wizardkind. She sees the pain he feels for all those who are forced to hide who they are, for all those who are afraid to embrace the power within them. She sees the pain he feels for her. For most of her life she’s believed that she’s cursed- a curse that comes in handy, from time to time- but essentially she’s an overpowered monster hiding behind a charming tea girl’s smiles.

Grindelwald thinks she’s a miracle.

“I wish you were working with me now towards a world where we wizards are free to live openly, and to love freely.”

 _Please, Queenie,_ his thoughts beg her. He thrills with anticipation: anticipation of her response. He’s that anxious about what she’s about to choose. He’s not even directly communicating with the strand of her mind which is investigating his head, as sometimes happens between Legilimens. He’s letting her watch his responses to her changing expressions, and all her searching cannot root out any deception. She dares to believe that he feels what he’s showing her. He’s trusting her with his thoughts, and they’re so genuine that her forgiving heart begins to wonder _what if he’s just misguided? He’s trying to help. But then…_

 _Is he really misguided? Or is he misrepresented?_ She sees his visions of her in a new world, not feared or reviled for an ability she never chose and can’t control, but living joyously, freely, married to Jacob because there are no reasons for them to be apart, relaxed because there’s no reason for Tina to endanger herself by being an auror. He wants that for her. And it’s idealistic and she knows that, she knows that she should tear herself away from these enchanting castles in the air and think about the terrible things he’s already done. But Grindelwald _wants_ this, he’s so passionate about the birth of this new age that he almost makes her believe that he can make it happen just by the force of his will. And the things he’s done…perhaps there are explanations? That feels off, and she knows that she’s convincing herself not to examine things she doesn’t want to think about. But Grindelwald’s passion and his drive and the way he understands her have lodged themselves inside her mind like an itch she can’t scratch, and it’s at that moment that she knows she’s lost.

“You are an innocent. So go now. Leave this place.”

She can’t leave this behind. She knows that.

So does he.

Queenie had thought she knew what Grindelwald’s head would sound like. She thought of the fire of his rage and the ice of his untamed power, and shivered.

She didn’t realise that the most dangerous thing about Gellert Grindelwald was his warmth.


End file.
